I purchased a used SPEC MIATA last summer from an individual who was an SCCA member, driving coach, and most importantly REGION CHAMPION 2-years running with the car in question. I'm not too mechanical, so I used a professional shop for just about everything. When the car arrived, we did the once over, replacing minor wear parts, changing fluids, new tires, and a good alignment. We also did a 'leak-down' test on the cylinders, and found 10% across the board. I really enjoyed the car and racing at Autobahn Country Club six-times as well as two SCCA races at Road America. After the season completed, we did another leak-down test, and found that (2) of the cylinders had increased to 15% and 18%. My shop recommended a rebuild by Stewart Engines for the best performance possible while staying well within the Spec. Miata competition rules. The motor was removed by my shop, and shipped to Stewart.

Here's the part that bothers me:

Stewart Engines gave me a report that stated the BLOCK, PISTONS, CAM and HEAD were all out of spec. for competition within the SCCA, and were clearly either manipulated and/or purchased that way. This was no accident! So, I'm in this for ANOTHER $ 1,000 to get it back within spec. not to mention the motor rebuild.

I contacted the prior owner with (2) emails. The first email was just a "Hey, how ya doin', does this email still work"? He responded very quickly, and my response email dropped the bombshell. Needless to say, the prior owner DID NOT respond the 2nd email.

What's the protocol on this?

I would have been extremely embarrassed had I finished well enough in a race to go through a thorough tech. inspection, and be found to be using CHEATER parts. I guess lucky for me! At the same time, this individual used the car for 2-Regional wins, and then uses his track record to promote himself as a driving coach, not to mention a couple of free-rides in MAJOR endurance races.

Continue to try to contact the guy. Offer to swap out the bad parts for new ones. He may want them back and then you save some money.

As far as reputation. I'd say thats a tough one. Unless his guys check the parts now, then its a he said/she said deal. You had the car for some time and could have done the work on the sly (I'm just saying....).

In another form of racing I did, buying any used engine meant it went straight to my builder to be checked out. Non-compliance was cheap and easy. Not real practical for most of us in SM though.Bummer.

Don, I too heard about this motor. This was blatant BIG TIME cheating.

Advanced Autosports has been doing a lot of engine work this winter. We have found multiple ported/polished intakes, ported heads and "adjusted" welds on exhaust manifolds.

All of these engines where installed in a used racecar or purchased used as an engine package. Most where claimed to be front runners and 2 where claimed to be untouched crate motors!!! One of the supposed crate motors wasn't even a crate motor (there are ways to tell a crate from a OEM engine).

My advice would be to know who you are buying from. Or buy new.

Another option would be more thorough inspections prior to buying the car. Instead of the normal walk around and check the brakes type lookover, pay to have the intake and exhaust pulled.

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Give the guy one more email asking for a crate motor and then post pictures and descriptions of all the cheats along with his name and let the sharks tear him apart.

--------------------Do I turn my 99 Hard S into a killerfast SM or seek a donor?

I agree with Kent. Give the dude a chance to make it right, then post the facts. If I had paid a premium for a front running car, that turned out to be illegal, I would probably think I had been a victim of fraud.wheel

Hard to imagine that he sold the car with these illegal modifications knowing that they would come to light as soon as the new owner tore the engine down. Doesn't seem very bright on his part if he is going through the effort to cheat.

Outing is really the only way this is going to get stopped. That list is pretty comprehensive of no-no's in the class, give him a chance... otherwise feed him to the hounds. I don't think "I know what you did last summer" background talk is going to do much good to blatant cheating such as this.

--------------------All this has happened before, and will happen again

If you do "out" him, be sure to stick to the clear facts. I wouldn't literally accuse him of anything; rather, I would state the simple facts that (i) you bought the car from him, with that motor in it; (ii) you had never messed with the engine's internals, (iii) when you had it torn down, you discovered that laundry list of rules violations, and (iv) he refused to communicate with you on the subject.

Let your readers draw the obvious inferences, but you risk defamation issues if you stray from known facts (e.g., the engine had these violations) by making accusations not completely supported by known facts (e.g., he knowingly had a cheater motor built).

A strong case could be made that if he DOESN'T out the guy, he'll be doing the biggest disservice he possibly could do to everyone in the SM community and/or everyone that deals with the guy in the future.

The only possible excuse the guy could have for the above mentioned "enhancemnts" is the old "I Was Had By My Engine Builder(s) excuse. There is a sub catagory rule: "I Was Had By The Previous Owner" excuse and this is the rule the current owner would be (legitimately) crying if he had, in turn, sold the heap to some other victim.

The previous owner "just might" be a victim of either of these two rules, but if so, he should be as interested in outting the guilty party as the current owner. At the very least, we should know the region that passed on this rocket so the region members can hold somebody's feet to the fire to turn the tech screw a little tighter.

If you stick to the facts, there is no libel. Besides, you're cheating the entire SM community out of hearing the excuses he, or his builder, come up with.

Pretty hard to use the "Had by the engine builder" excuse when you pay the guy $XXX per hour to do the work and you have to pay for the oversized pistons, etc. He could use the "previous owner" excuse, which is what Don would have been doing if he hadn't torn the engine down. Hey Don, who sold you the car?

All of your input has been great, not to mention a TON of private messages to my email. Our little track at Autobahn has over 50-competitors in the SM class, and with a 12-race season in our club, I'm sure this issue will be raised there as well. It's my intention to qualify for my Natl. license after the run at Blackhawk in late April, and I'm happy to have found this mess out now vs. a tech. inspection that pointed the finger at me.

As far as the prior owner, I'm giving him a chance to 'explain' himself before I hand him over to all of you for stoning and be-heading. Believe me, I'm NOT happy about the additional expense I will incur to get this car right.

One other note: I've been a member of the Corvette Forum for a number of years, and have had more fun on this forum in 1-day than I can say I have had over there for a very long time. I think it's the COMPETITIVE nature of our sport vs. the enthusiast at Corvette.

Thanks for all of your input fellas. We'll see where this goes soon enough.

quote:Originally posted by Don Esbjornson:One other note: I've been a member of the Corvette Forum for a number of years, and have had more fun on this forum in 1-day than I can say I have had over there for a very long time. I think it's the COMPETITIVE nature of our sport vs. the enthusiast at Corvette.

Advantages of SM.com over Corvetteforum:

1) Less anonymity2) Less Zaino3) When the green flag drops, the bullshit stops

The truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim! When you bought the car were you told that the car had a pro motor built by...........(fill in the blank)? I agree with "outing" both the seller and the builder and let them defend the motor. Sounds like you were fraudulently induced into buying the car.

quote:Originally posted by Don Esbjornson:One other note: I've been a member of the Corvette Forum for a number of years, and have had more fun on this forum in 1-day than I can say I have had over there for a very long time. I think it's the COMPETITIVE nature of our sport vs. the enthusiast at Corvette.

quote:Originally posted by TillerTech: From the other thread, the list of parts is what the Pro motor builders were doing a couple years ago. (not the pistons)As rules creep does, this is going to be one of the byproducts.

John

I said it from the beginning of this Thread (and this is my 1st thread on SM), I'm a newbie! I am/was honestly looking for advice and comments on what was going on, and what was the correct protocol on dealing with the information that my shop had given me. At the time of my Thread posting, the seller had not responded to my 2nd email for nearly 7-days (last Tuesday, Jan. 27th). I learned on Corvette Forum that there is POWER in these forums, and after having an issue with a transmission purchase, the MFG. responded well only after a post on CF.

No great surprise, I received a response from the seller yesterday, and offer it in its entirety for all of you to review:

___________________________

Don,

I'm sorry that the motor isn't what you need it to be going forward. I made some phone calls to verify my understanding of the motor; that's why it took me a little longer to get back to you. Let's review the history of that motor.

After my previous motor expired, I bought a new crate motor from Mazdaspeed. I sent the head to Sunbelt for a legal prep. I don't know what Sunbelt did and I recognize that I was responsible for racing a legal engine. However, that is what I paid for and I could only assume I was provided a legal head. I never opened the motor so I never knew what was in there, nor would I have been able to tell. There was a commonly exploited loophole then of using cam blanks ground to "ideal" specs within factory tolerances (blueprinting). However, in my understanding the cams should still have conformed to factory specs and I assume that they do (wear excepted). I don't know what has happened since then about using re-ground cams. I also don't know that Sunbelt used reground cam blanks. I'm not an engine specialist and certainly Sunbelt doesn't publish what they do to a head. What I was buying was Sunbelt's reputation for building fast, legal engines and that is what I was advertising by noting Sunbelt as the builder of the head.

That motor (Sunbelt head on a crate bottom end) failed after only 11.5 hours; you will recall we discussed that I was not pleased about that. After teardown, it was determined that the head was OK but the bottom end was destroyed. The head was then re-assembled on an existing bottom end. That bottom end used forged pistons. At that time, there was a rule that allowed non-OEM parts of the same dimensions. The forged pistons were therefore legal. The pistons were very minimally oversize to allow for the cylinders to be re-honed. However, they were definitely NOT achieving larger displacement. Bottom line, none of what was done to the bottom end made any performance advantage and it was legal. The crankshaft had been balanced when the bottom end was assembled, although I only found that out today. But again there was no performance advantage to the balancing or the pistons. I never would have run a cheater motor and those who know me know I would never taint my performance with cheating.

That bottom end had half a season of racing on it when I sold the car. But it was not the Mazdaspeed crate bottom end. We discussed all of this at the time of the sale. Also, in the advertisement you sent, it notes a Sunbelt head, but does not specify the builder of the bottom end.

I don't know anything about any other machine work done to the motor, either by Sunbelt to the head or by the previous owner of the bottom end. Since I'm not a professional mechanic I never had any way to verify what I purchased but I trust the seller of the bottom end and I trust Sunbelt. I staked my reputation racing that motor and winning a championship with it, just the way I sold it to you. I advertised the car as in the form in which I won the championship, and went through many technical inspections, and that is exactly what I delivered to you.

I'm not making excuses or splitting hairs, but keep in mind that the Spec Miata rules have evolved over time. What was legal when I sold the car may have changed since then.

Don, the car has been in the winner's circle many times and therefore subjected to multiple inspections. To the best of my knowledge the car fully complied with the rules at the time I sold it.

I wish you the best of luck racing the car.

_________________________________

That's it fellas. I don't see any reason to name names at this point. That is not/was not my objective.

The lesson here - BUYER BEWARE / SELLER BEWARE

I bought this car over the internet from MANY miles away, and had one referral on character that wasn't terribly positive. I bought the car anyway . . . now I will pay the price to get it right for TODAY's specs.

That reply sounded like a lot of BS and covering the you know what. Overbore pistons were NEVER allowed. Period. Balancing the crank, way out there. And to top it all off, the individual claims non of it to be a performance advantage.

It's disapointing you got screwed and the seller won't help make it right.

Per the rule book. "Stock replacement parts may be obtained from sources other than the manufacturer provided they are the exact equivalent of the original parts. The intent of this rule is to allow the competitor to obtain replacement parts from standard industry outlets, e.g., auto-parts distributors, rather than from the manufacturer. It is not intended to allow parts that do not meet all dimensional and material specifications of new parts from the manufacturer."

quote:Originally posted by Motor City Hamilton:Plus if your block needs to be honed and it is out of spec, you can have it re-sleved, but not over bored. That bottom end doesn't sound legal.

The resleaving rule is likely newer than that motor (I don't know the exact timeline from the previous posts). The forged pistons are pretty dubious and the OEM equivalent rule, itself, is relatively new. Those cams might have been running in the car after the rules changed, but they were pretty well accepted as legal a handful of years ago. Steve Scheifler's expose on pro motors showed some bowl porting a year or two ago and I would bet it was commonplace a handful of years ago before we had national tech.

Sorry to hear about it, Don, although you might find a happy buyer in an ITA Miata.

My name is David Bahr and I sold this car to Don in April, 2008. I won the SCCA regional championships in this car in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 (we race over the winters here in Phoenix). After May, 2006 the car was listed for sale on this site, was raced two more weekends in early 2007, and was sold in the condition it was raced. When I sold it the car was white with green stripes, #56.

What did I know and when did I know it? Well, Don now has all the receipts on the car but I've gone back through three years of credit card records for you.

My old motor couldn't finish a race without over-heating in the second half of the 2004-2005 season. In May, 2005 I junked it and bought a crate motor from Mazdaspeed. I sent the head to Sunbelt for an SCCA legal race prep. The head was re-installed on the crate bottom end. The bottom end failed after 11.5 hours, late in 2005. I had little money and two weeks before the next race; I was leading the championship at the time so I needed to do something quick.

A fellow competitor had an assembled bottom end sitting on a shelf. He had had it built up for a since-abandoned turbo project, hence the forged pistons. My understanding at the time was that the forged pistons were dimensionally identical to stock and were legal under the "non-OEM" rule. And let's think about it, forging isn't going to make the pistons produce more power in any way. They were used for their heat-resistance in a turbo application. Anyway, the turbo project was long-since abandoned, the block was sitting on the shelf and was offered to me as a favor, the Sunbelt head was slapped on it and I raced it. To reiterate, to the full extent of my knowledge I raced a legal Sunbelt head on a second-hand block with non-OEM but compliant pistons.

Were the cams reground blanks? Such cams were ruled legal at the time. I don't know whether my motor had them, but it was common practice then by engine builders. Was there machine-work in the head? I didn't and don't have any way of knowing. But Sunbelt built motors for Spec Miatas all over the country, and they didn't do anything differently for this one since I was just another customer and I asked for only the regular Spec Miata prep work. Don, you have the receipts, you know there is nothing in there about "special" prep on the head.

I didn't know about the crankshaft balancing. Did I gain any performance advantage? No. I also just found out that the pistons actually had a lower compression ratio. So not only were the pistons not a performance advantage, they were a disadvantage! So much for any theories of cheating for an advantage.

I also just now found out that the builder of the bottom end preferred to do his own hone on the cylinders. So the pistons were over-sized a few thousandths to allow this. No one now remembers if it was .003 or .006 but we're not talking about going .040 over. I didn't know this when I ran the car and I didn't know it when I sold it. Did I unknowingly gain an advantage? A few thousandths can't make much difference, and the lower compression ratio would have more than offset it.

I'm embarassed and apologize that the bottom end isn't what I thought it was. I know I have a responsibility to run 100% legal stuff and that resonsibility isn't reduced by not knowing what is in my engine. But there is no way I had a "cheater" motor in the way your email paints it.

I'm not attacking or accusing Don here. He admits he's not an expert mechanic, and I'm not one, either. He probably got the information just as he relayed it here. But "oversize pistons" and "cheater cams" does not accurately describe the facts.

So there are two issues here.

1) Did I knowingly cheat? No. I thought I had a legal head on a legal bottom end. Did I gain a performance advantage? No. In fact, the lower compression pistons hurt me. Were any of my competitors disadvantaged because of my motor? No way.

2) Did I mis-represent the car I sold? Again, no. I told Don about the forged pistons and the non-OEM rule. The car matched the ad, matched my claims for it, and was exactly as raced. It made decent power but was never the class steamroller, and that is exactly what I represented to Don.

Don, you know that this car never drove like it had a "cheated up" engine. You haven't been blowing past other cars on the straights. I never was, so I know you weren't, either.

A last note on my timing. I got Don's questions while I was out of town. I waited past a weekend to make some phone calls during the week when shops are open. I no longer read SpecMiata.com every day so this thread was a surprise to me, and I try to not respond in the heat of the moment, especially when I'm being targeted. I've taken several hours of my time to get the most complete and accurate information for Don, and for the Spec Miata community, and to write a respectful response. Some of those conversations took place after I had already replied to Don, and I've included the additional information here. I wasn't dodging the questions or trying to duck my head.

Don, if you'd like to discuss this further I invite you to pick up the phone and have a conversation with me. If you've lost my number, it's 480-208-3785. I invite anyone else to, as well. I stand behind my driving and behind the representations I made when I sold the car.

Thank you for sharing your insight directly to this forum. It was not, and is not my objective to have your personally defend the WHO, WHAT, WHY and HOW of this cars current condition. I did hope to better understand the proper protocol when this type of situation arises, and I have certainly been given alot of advice, some good and others not so much.

Seems this forum has taken on a life of its own, and your participation will certainly be appreciated by the group.

I have no reason to pursue this further. You have stated your reasons/explanations for the infractions, and clearly have taken no responsibility for the end result.

I wish you the best of luck in your racing career, coaching and other business pursuits.